The One World Trust is a non-profit organisation that lobbies decision-makers to develop global rules and organisations to achieve the eradication of poverty, injustice and war. You can sign up for OWT news alerts at their web site.

The Monthly Watch is an independent Monthly Newsletter of the Somali Organisation for Community Development Activities (SOCDA). First published in December 2001 to act as an organisational mouthpiece, a voice for the struggling Somali Civil Society Organisations and a catalyst in the reconstruction of Somalia. Contact the editor at [email protected] for more information.

Many thanks for publishing Professor Mamdani' s brilliant analysis of the situation in the Sudan. But the Ugandan intellectual should have included his nationality instead of just telling his readers that he is an eminent professor at Columbia Univesity. Hence, Dr. Mamdani, in spite of what is happening in Africa, ought to be proud of not only his Asian roots but also his birthplace Africa (Uganda).

Editors reply: The omission of Mamdani's nationality was our doing, not his. The description of his present post was inserted by us, not him. We don't, as a policy, declare contibutor's nationalities, just as we haven't included yours.

The African Dreams essay competition was launched jointly by People's Health Movement Africa (PHM-Africa) and Italian NGO AIFO and carries a cash prize of 500 Euros each to the three best entries. Since lots of people have written to say that they have found out about the competition very late, it has been decided to extend the last date for entries to this competition to 15 January 2005 to allow wider participation. Full details about participating in the competition are available at http://www.aifo.it/english/resources/announcements.htm

Diego Garcia, an island between Africa and Asia, was once a paradise for its 2000 inhabitants. But all that changed in the 1960s when the United States took over the island for use as a military base and forced the inhabitants into exile. Commentator John Pilger writes in a recent article that often it is one crime that exposes how a whole system works. “To understand the catastrophe of Iraq, and all the other Iraqs along imperial history's trail of blood and tears, one need look no further than Diego Garcia,” he writes.

The mining sector in the DRC is seen as a potentially large revenue earner capable of funding rehabilitation and economic revival, but hopes that mining can act as an engine for growth will not be realised unless immediate action is taken to control the illicit trade in minerals from the south-eastern province of Katanga.

"Stringent and transparent management of natural resource exploitation is crucial to the future peace, stability and economic development of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)," says a report from Global Witness released in September. The report says there is currently a “cobalt rush” occurring in Katanga caused by record-high international cobalt prices. But it notes that there is “little indication” that this dramatic rise in trade has had any benefit to the DRC economy or the Katangan province.

The real losers in the “cobalt rush”, notes the report, are artisanal miners working under "appalling" conditions in mines throughout southern Katanga. "Deprived of any alternative sources of employment, young men and boys work for as little as US$1 per day gathering mineral soil by hand. They have no protective equipment, and their activities are left completely unregulated by local authorities."

The report makes recommendations to the international donor community, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, transitional government and United Nations. The DRC is emerging from a devastating conflict that cost the lives of an estimated three million people. A transitional government is charged with taking the country through to elections in 2005.

* Written from the report by Pambazuka News. For the full report, click on http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC16091

Two Kenyan radio journalists trained in how to cover HIV/AIDS under Internews Network’s Local Voices project have won a prestigious award for the best HIV/AIDS radio program in Africa. The Union of African Radio and Television Organizations (URTNA) announced recently that Ann Mikia and Sammy Muraya had won the award for their program, “A Stitch in Time.” They both work for the Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation’s (KBC) English Service.

Press Code improvements will not guarantee greater liberty if authorities circumvent the code, as they have in the past, says a report on press reforms in Togo from the Committee to Protect Journalists. And while the government has promised political parties equitable access to the state media - the only media with a nationwide reach - there is reason to be wary of this guarantee as well. Togolese President Gnassingbé Eyadéma is Africa's longest-serving head of state whose ironfisted tactics and numerous human rights abuses led the European Union (EU) to suspend cooperation with Togo in 1993. But in Brussels in April 2004, the Eyadéma regime pledged 22 democratization reforms in a bid to get EU economic sanctions lifted.

The incidence of cholera and malaria in South Africa is likely to increase dramatically during the next 50 years because of the effects of global warming. This is a warning from Professor Roland Schulze, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal's School of Bioresources, Engineering in Pietermaritzburg. People should begin preparing now to deal with global warming, Schulze warned, because there were already indications that climate change was affecting the country.

The United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) first Global Women’s Assembly on Environment: Women as the Voice for the Environment (WAVE) convened from 11-13 October 2004, in Nairobi, Kenya. The Assembly focused on generating outputs related to the upcoming Beijing+10 review session, the five-year review of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the 13th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13). Over 150 participants from 60 countries attended the Assembly, some from remote indigenous communities and small island developing States.

Most drug discoveries are made by public institutions. Private pharmaceutical companies, however, generally take over the development and commercialisation of the drugs. This "privatisation of science" has been accelerated by shortcomings in the patent system, says Carlos María Correa, director of the Centre of Interdisciplinary Studies of Industrial and Economic Law at the University of Buenos Aires. Writing in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, Correa says large drug companies have exploited the patent system. Developing nations need to design and implement patent laws that prevent strategic patenting and which promote competition and access to medicines, Correa concludes.

The National Network on Violence Against Women (NNVAW) is a non-profit-organisation (NPO) consisting of member organisations, individuals and government departments around the country. The NNVAW is a leading collaborative organisation in South Africa whose sole aim is to bring together organisations into a collective, to fight and end Violence Against Women (VAW). The NNVAW is inviting a mature, dynamic and experienced person, with sound knowledge and technical skills in fund raising and solid understanding of South African and international NGO environment.

The publication of this volume is part of the efforts of the Pan-African Programme on Land and Resource Rights to disseminate a uniquely African voice on matters of land and resource rights. The authors proceed from the understanding that poor Africans are critically dependent on land and other natural resources for survival, but their ability to access these necessities is hampered by inappropriate laws and policies as well as social, political and economic marginalisation.

African researchers and knowledge managers are invited to apply for participation in the Knowledge Sharing for Development Workshop to be held in Cairo, Egypt February 2005. The workshop aims at enhancing the knowledge sharing and research dissemination capacity of research institutes and networks in Africa.

City-dwellers in one of Africa’s poorest countries have faced soaring bills and mass disconnections since an international consortium, which includes the British company Biwater, was put in charge of their water supply. According to a new report from the development charity ActionAid, water privatisation in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam has neglected the needs of poor people, despite the World Bank’s assurances that access to water for poor residents would be improved.

At least 20,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northern Uganda were left homeless after a rainstorm wrecked thousands of grass-thatched huts in their camp in the district of Gulu, relief agencies in the area said on Monday. "Three people were injured while about four thousand huts had their roofs blown off when a strong storm swept through Pabbo IDP camp on Sunday evening," Coreen Auma of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said by phone from Gulu. Pabbo camp, situated about 400 km north of the capital, Kampala, is home to 62,000 people displaced by the 18-year old war between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

Refugee warehousing needs to end, argues this commentary. "It is time to rethink warehousing, and refugee groups and the UN high commissioner for refugees have recently begun to explore how to help refugees become more self-reliant. Refugees who learn skills or earn money can be an asset to their war-torn homelands when they return. Moreover, there are ways to open up refugee camps without angering host populations. Zambia, for example, has given Angolan refugees land to farm. The food they grow has turned sleepy villages into trading centers, fueling local commerce."

Some seven US ex-Congressmen who passed for observers of the October 11 presidential election in Cameroon have been accused of receiving bribes to the colossal sum of 400.000 US dollars to authenticate the polls in the face of the international community, reports Cameroon journalist Jumkondah Francis Garriba in this www.zmag.org article. The accusation emerged from Cameroon's frontline opposition Social Democratic Front, SDF. According to Mr. Nkemngu Martin, communication officer for the SDF, the so-called US observers were in Cameroon on a rescue mission. Referring to them as hungry con men, Nkemngu said their mission was to rescue "the ailing regime of incumbent president Paul Biya". Mr. Biya has been glued to power since 1982.

People in many areas of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are taking steps to improve their methods for resolving arguments over land. Community structures are being developed to settle disputes without the need to go to higher courts, which is often time-consuming and expensive. An example of a successful new initiative is the ‘peace committees’ developed in Mali to resolve conflicts between herding groups and farmers. This is according to research by the International Institute for Environment and Development in the UK that looks at the issues emerging from changes to land policies in SSA, including the increasing conflicts over land ownership and access.

In a plea for the government to protect its citizens against abuse, the chairwoman of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Salamata Sawadogo, has urged the authorities of the Republic of Congo to set up state institutions to guarantee the protection of its people from abuse. The government, she said, needed to implement conventions to which it was a signatory. She said her visit to Congo was intended to draw the attention of the government to three "important subregional conventions" on the protection of human rights that had not yet been ratified by the country.

Somalia’s newly elected president said on Monday his administration would not remain in exile, but would return to the war-ravaged country before security was completely restored. President Abdullahi Yusuf said once his cabinet was selected they would return – although they would initially establish themselves outside the capital, Mogadishu. He rejected calls for the new government to return only when security is restored.

The disappearance of thousands of voter-registration cards in the Central African Republic (CAR) was one of several problems marring the process of registering, an effort that ended on Sunday. Officials said the number of people to register was relatively low. Next week, the Independent Mixed Electoral Commission, known as the CEMI, plans to publish the number of people registered to vote.

The African Union (AU) warned last Thursday against the "erosion of human rights" as governments engage in the fight against terrorism. At the closing of the first-ever AU conference on African national human rights institutions, officials warned that without proper checks, rights could be abused. They said that the fight against terrorism must be balanced with the protection of the rights of people detained as suspects. African governments also faced calls to establish "independent and national" human rights organisations to protect their citizens.

In the course of the armed conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), tens of thousands of women and girls have been victims of systematic rape and sexual assault committed by combatant forces, says a new report from Amnesty International. "Women and girls have been attacked in their homes, in the fields or as they go about their daily activities. Many have been raped more than once or have suffered gang rapes. In many cases, women and young girls have been taken as sex slaves by combatants," says AI.

The report, 'Mass rape - time for remedies' says rape has often been preceded or followed by the deliberate wounding, torture (including torture of sexual nature) or killing of the victim. Rapes have been committed in public and in front of family members, including children. Some women have been raped next to the corpses of family members. Despite the official end to the war and the inauguration of the transitional government, humanitarian needs in some provinces have been increasing, notes Amnesty. "Throughout large areas of the east people are lacking even the most basic services for health and food security."

Amnesty estimates that fewer than 30 per cent of Congolese have access to even basic health care. The countrywide malnutrition rate is around 16 per cent, rising to up to 30 per cent in areas of the east, with 13 per cent classed as severe malnutrition. It is believed that over one million children aged under five suffer from acute malnutrition, and that one in every five Congolese children do not live to see their fifth birthday.

Although the levels of conflict in eastern DRC have diminished since the signing of the peace agreements, violence has continued. In many areas the violence is now sporadic and localised, but in other cases has been more extensive and threatened to reignite widespread armed conflict in the east.

* Compiled from the report by Pambazuka News. The full report is available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr620182004

Abandoned and orphaned children are languishing in South African institutions while bureaucrats take up to two years to decide whether they can be adopted. Around a quarter of a million South African children are orphaned but large numbers are falling through bureaucratic cracks. By mid-2004, according to the Actuarial Association of South Africa (ASSA) 2002 model, 250 000 children in South African had lost both parents but government departments tasked with the welfare of these vulnerable children are unable to confirm actual numbers who are being cared for in children’s homes.

A leading women's advocacy group in Zambia has appealed to health authorities to spend more funds on improving maternal care. An increasing number of women have died during childbirth in recent years. The latest figures from the 2001/02 Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS) indicated 729 deaths per 100,000 live births, significantly higher than in neighbouring countries. Lumba Siyanga, the acting executive director of the women's advocacy NGO, Women For Change, said pregnant rural women were made increasingly vulnerable due to the lack of access to reproductive healthcare and the low quality of treatment.

The sleepy town of Cabinda has a forlorn air about it, but few outward signs of the decades-long conflict that has plagued the oil-rich Angolan province. Although Cabinda produces 60 percent of Angola's oil revenues, the province, saddled with one of the highest HIV rates in the country, has been slow to respond to the epidemic.

Over 100 women from the Great Lakes Region earlier this month concluded a meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, where they discussed key issues, challenges and action required to bring peace and stability to the conflict-affected region. The event, which took place from 7-9 October 2004, is the third regional meeting of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region, and the first women's meeting. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was a lead facilitator of the event, coordinating the activities of women from numerous countries to ensure that different viewpoints on key issues were adequately reflected, and that national perspectives would feed into a broader regional vision.

Despite reports that the South African HIV/AIDS advocacy group Treatment Action Campaign had dropped its legal action against the South African government to force it to make its antiretroviral treatment program rollout plan publicly available, the group has not dropped its suit and is asking the government to "urgently" develop and publish an implementation plan, the SAPA/SABC News reports.

At the invitation of the Independent Electoral Commission of Botswana, Prof. Alpha Oumar Konare, Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, sent a 15-member multidisciplinary team of observers to participate in the forthcoming general elections, which will be held countrywide on October 30. The African Union Observer Team, led by Hon. Justice J. B. Kalaile, Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission in Malawi and composed of Parliamentarians, members of Electoral Management Bodies, Civil Society Organisations and other officials drawn from various African Countries, arrived in Botswana on October 24.

Two decades after HIV/AIDS was discovered, it continues to spread across continents, infecting and killing millions and destroying entire communities. Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 11 percent of the total world population, has 70 percent of all HIV/AIDS infections in the world, making it the worstaffected continent.

Although one may dispute the alarming figures, the fact remains that HIV/AIDS has had devastating consequences for countries, societies, families and individuals. It is a global crisis and the outlook is worsening, with India, China and Russia projected to be the next centres of the pandemic.

HIV/AIDS attacks every sector of the society, affecting food security, depressing national economies, and rolling back the development gains of the last thirty or more years, as the African experience has shown, especially in the worst-affected countries.

Underlining the pandemic in which women figure disproportionately is the fact that HIV/AIDS thrives in and reinforces conditions of deprivation, poverty, oppression, conflicts, social violence, and social collapse. Thus HIV/AIDS has to be tackled from a social and economic perspective, taking into account the global structures and forces that have led to social and economic crises and exacerbated the vulnerability of populations to death and diseases including HIV/AIDS.

Combating social inequalities within a country and between countries is fundamental to Health for All. This means challenging the power structures and policies that engender ill health, be they governments, the World Bank-IMF, unequal trade agreements, structural adjustment policies, corporate-driven privatisation or free-market fundamentalism, all of which have severely affected public health systems particularly in the Third World.

It is within this context that the HIV/AIDS catastrophe has to be considered. HIV/AIDS cannot be tackled with technocentric and medical solutions alone. HIV/AIDS requires an integrated social, economic and political response, where health is recognised as a fundamental human right and health inequities are simply unacceptable.

This document is a joint effort of the Third World Network and the People's Health Movement. It is hoped that the articles and perspectives in the book can be a useful source for campaign and advocacy.

Produced by Third World Resurgence
154 Pages
Price: Third World - US$10.00; First World: US$14.00 (Prices are
inclusive of postage cost by air mail.)

For more information mailto:[email protected]

SOURCE: afro-nets mailing list
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The Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) and ICOZA have launched a new joint venture, called NGO.ZA. The overall aim of NGO.ZA is to meet and respond to the South African NGO sector's connectivity, hardware and e-business infrastructure requirements, and as a result, transform the ICT usage, capacity and infrastructure levels of the sector.

This paper analyses a project that aimed to make Ugandan 'Telecentres' more relevant to rural women there. It had been found that these resources were under used because of lack of literacy, gender roles at home and lack of suitable content. The project identified a need for information on income generation activities and therefore developed a CD-ROM with easy to follow modules outlining the basics of marketing, credit and sales management.

Since its inception 17 years ago, Black History Month UK (BHM) has become an important feature on the British calendar and an invaluable way of showcasing the contributions that Africans and people of African descent have made to world civilization. The celebration goes a long way to rectify the popular belief that Africans have no history.

Recent trends seem to suggest a shift away from strengthening of regional cooperation in Southern Africa. But such regionalism has been hitherto a declared priority on development agendas. Hampering factors presently include political differences such as the controversy over Zimbabwe. This escalated into a sharp division of views among the member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It is hardly an exaggeration to state that the inability to agree on a common approach has an almost paralysing effect. The following analysis is however concentrated on socio-economic factors of concern, which divide the region further instead of bringing it closer together.

Strategic shift towards NEPAD

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) seems to emerge increasingly as a type of mega-NGO to channel aid-funds into developmental projects, which at best claim but in reality fail to be driven by a desire towards enhanced regional collaboration. The programmes and policies funded under NEPAD are implemented mainly by countries and not by regional bodies. Hence NEPAD in effect more undermines than strengthens an agency such as SADC (or any other regional institution).

This is a trend notwithstanding the fact that NEPAD attributes substantial relevance to regional bodies when identifying ways and means to achieve the defined socio-economic goals. NEPAD claims that its agenda is “based on national and regional priorities and development plans”, which ought to be prepared “through participatory processes involving the people”. So far, however, no visible signs in the SADC would indicate that the collective (multilateral) efforts aim at a united approach of the region in its relations with the outside world.

Nor does NEPAD so far translate its noble aims into practical steps for implementation. The blue print emphasises sub-regional and regional approaches even under a separate sub heading. It stresses “the need for African countries to pool their resources and enhance regional development and economic integration … to improve international competitiveness”. But the crux of the matter lies there: the emphasis on international competitiveness comes at the expenses of strengthening the local economy and the local people. Instead, integration in Africa should as a priority meet the socio-economic and environmental needs of its citizenries and not seek to turn even more into an export platform.

NEPAD claims further to enhance the provision of essential regional goods as well as the promotion of intra-African trade and investments, with another focus on “rationalising the institutional framework for economic integration”. But again, such an approach neglects the local/internal in favour of the global/external orientation. The implementation of NEPAD will hence most likely have the adverse effect and assist in an increased outward orientation of a regional bloc at the expenses of internal consolidation. It is interesting to note in this context, that notwithstanding the decisive role of South Africa within NEPAD, SADC has so far hardly acknowledged and certainly not embraced the initiative.

Divisive Free Trade Agreements

The Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and South Africa (EU-SA FTA) negotiated since the mid-1990s, had a similarly divisive effect on the Southern African region by entering into a preferential trade relation with one country and thereby enhancing differences within the region resulting from existing conflicts of interest among the national economies.

South Africa herself, the monetary zone, the South African Customs Union (SACU) and SADC are already not in harmony at any time and less so given the effects of the FTA on regional economic matters. Hence the EU intervention adds more friction. The new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiated between the countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands (ACP states) on the one hand and the EU on the other hand not only seek to replace the previous Cotonou Agreement by means of sub-regional separate negotiations but also aim towards compatibility between EU-ACP trade relations and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They are hence dependent upon the settlement of the Doha Development Agenda's controversial and yet unresolved issues.

Interesting enough, the draft European Constitution makes no reference to cooperation with ACP states. It is only fair to assume that the EU enlargement shifts interest even further away from the neighbouring continent towards more collaboration closer to Brussels. In addition, the negotiations by the EU aim at separate accords with each region, and no country may negotiate in more than one bloc. As such, SADC is reduced to seven member countries (half of the 14 SADC states) under the EPA negotiations.

It is not far fetched to see that there is an inbuilt conflict between regionalism as it exists and the negotiations of new multilateral processes. Countries might differ over the advantages between benefits from the continued protection of regional arrangements or the creation of individual preferential access within other trade agreements. But if regionalism is considered as a problem or obstacle towards further global harmonisation under the WTO, it stands little chances of being a viable point of departure for strengthening in particular the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the South within the global trade arrangements.

Instead, the predictable outcome of the current negotiations under the WTO related agreements will be a shrinking of “development space”. To avoid such in-egalitarian pseudo-partnerships, a shift in balance from the drive to homogenize trading commitments to other states towards granting states reasonable scope to choose appropriate levels of national protection is required. A development strategy would therefore have to operate in a zone where both internal as well as external integration reinforce rather than undermine each other. Instead, issues of internal integration (including issues of regional integration) have largely dropped out of the development agenda as the gospel of the free trade paradigm dominates the discourse.

EU and US as partners?

The same limiting effects can be expected from the Free Trade Agreement between SACU and the USA. The SACU-US FTA seems to promise nothing different from the US-American African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which tends to separate and divide instead of bringing African economies and interests closer. The benefits from AGOA differ among African countries according to their resources.

Ironically, within those countries having been allocated a LDC status under AGOA (receiving additional preferential treatment), external capital (from mainly East Asian countries) has managed to exploit the opportunities created for supplying the US market under preferential tax regimes with cheap textiles from these countries. The by and large unqualified and underpaid workforce in the local sweatshops is hardly reaping any benefits from the super exploitation. Nor does the fiscus in these states, as initial investments and running costs for operations are substantially subsidised with public revenue instead of providing any tax income from the profits generated.

Such recent trends indicate towards less rather than more regional cooperation and integration. The political and security interests might provide with increased support by the G8 (the group of 8 most industrialised countries of the Northern hemisphere) and the strengthening of initiatives towards closer regional collaboration in reducing armed conflicts and securing more stability. Such stability continues however to be perceived as regime security, in contrast to a concept of human security. The latter would give primacy to human rights in favour of the citizens and not preference to the governments in power.

Even if there would be achievements in this direction, the multidimensionality and heterogeneity of a region like Southern Africa is likely to persist and may eventually increase. This does not prevent external support towards further positive regional interdependence. But this requires more than merely the opening up to the global economy. More so, it would have to re-visit matters of regional economic collaboration and seek involvement of the majority of the African population in these countries. The current initiatives by the EU and the US under the WTO offer little to no promise to contribute to such a desirable tendency, neither in SADC nor elsewhere.

* Henning Melber is Research Director at The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden and has been Director of the Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek between 1992 and 2000.

* Please send comments to

Fifteen million children, including 12.6 million in Africa alone, have lost one or both parents to Aids. Many countries have taken steps to ensure that Aids orphans attend school; but new research by ActionAid and Save the Children shows that school attendance by itself does little to improve children's chances. Children are affected by the epidemic in many different ways. Some have lost family members; some are themselves chronically ill. Some live in refugee camps; others fend for themselves on city streets. The problems that children face include poverty, psychological trauma and social stigma. The two charities suggest specific educational initiatives to support children in all these situations and more. They urge education ministries to institute flexible approaches, which address the individual child's situation and needs.

Starting in the year 2000, free primary education has been rolled out each year in Lesotho and it is starting to revolutionize the country’s youth. At school, children are taught life skills and HIV/AIDS education and are given two meals a day through the World Food Programme’s school-feeding programme. At the Katlehong primary school, in Thaba Tseka, the schoolyard is jam-packed with over 150 chattering children, girls and boys, small and big. All of them had lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. Many of the children are heading households themselves.

With U.S. voters anxiously contemplating the body count arising from the United States' deployment in Iraq - as well as the associated threat of terrorism - it was probably to be expected that Africa would get little "face time" in the presidential election. But as the campaign enters its final week, the continent has received even less attention than some might have hoped. Nonetheless, certain observers believe Africa will be less easily sidelined after Nov. 2.

The richest 10 percent of Kenya's households control more than 42 percent of its total income, according to a report that ranks the East African country among the ten most unequal nations in the world. The poorest 10 percent make do with less than one percent of Kenya's wealth, noted the report, which was launched on Tuesday. "For every shilling spent by the poorest 10 percent in Kenya, the richest 10 percent spend about 52 shillings," said the report, compiled by the Society for International Developmet (SID) in conjunction with Kenya's planning ministry and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously to meet in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi next month in order to forge peace in southern Sudan, Africa’s longest running civil war. "My hope is that the parties will certainly close the differences very, very substantially, and it would be great if there were a peace agreement," said US Ambassador John Danforth, who sponsored the resolution. The Security Council will hold official sessions in Nairobi on November 18-19, which will be aimed at giving momentum to solving the crisis in Darfur, in western Sudan.

The power of Transnational Corporations (TNCs) must never be underestimated. Corporate power has increased poverty and reduced many people to mere spectators in the development processes of their countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been presented as the multilateral institutions designed to shape the financial and economic policies of the world “for a better life for everyone”. But they are the main architects of policies that have impoverished the third world. Corporate power has long been a global phenomenon where there is no global government accountable to the people of every country to oversee the globalisation process in a mode comparable to the national governments’ guided nationalisation processes.

Today the United Nation’s General Assembly will be voting again on an issue concerning Cuba, as it has done for almost four decades now. The subject is the continuing blockade of the small Caribbean socialist nation by its bullying neighbour, the lone superpower (some will say hyper power).

The Assembly will undoubtedly call for the end to this punitive measure on Cuba by the US, not for any act of aggression or intent to do so, but just because Cuba has dared not to organise its society along the cut-throat vulture capitalism of its neighbour. For daring to imagine different worlds, successive US governments since the early 1960s have sought both to eliminate Fidel Castro and destroy Cuba’s socialism. In an enduring victory for common peoples across the world, the big guys have never won in this case!

Before the revolution of 1959 Cuba was a playground to the US. A combination of ideologically driven obsession with regime change in Cuba and nostalgia for US hegemony in the country fuelled by the powerful Cuban-American interests in the state of Florida in particular and across the US has meant that a rational debate on what threat, if any, this small island posed to the US has been almost impossible.

One does not expect that in an election year in which all opinion polls and forecasts predict a very close run between the incumbent hawkish Republican Bushman and his patrician democrat rival, reason can prevail on America’s negative policies against Cuba.

The rest of the world has no vote in the US elections even though its outcome has grave implications for all of us. However, all of us do have a voice in the United Nations even if the UN is a pejorative nomenclature inside the US. That voice should be used to restate again to the US that it cannot claim global leadership and at the same time defy global consensus and civilised standards. It cannot give itself the role of global Sheriff and act like a rogue.

Bush may have cowed many countries and peoples into quiet acquiescence in his irresponsible behaviour internationally but there is a growing concern at its exercise of power without responsibility both within America itself and internationally. The vast majority of the peoples of the world must use today’s vote on the illegal blockade on Cuba to yet again demonstrate to the US that the rest of us will have our say and exercise our right not to be colluders in US brigandage.

The usual suspect client states of the US, most notably Israel, will vote against the censure resolution while most countries of the world will vote for it. A small number may even abstain. Some African countries (a very small minority I am happy to say) in recent years have chosen, out of fear or misplaced loyalties or even diplomatic incompetence by officials, to abstain. Abstinence on such an issue is voting along with US bullying of Cuba.

Unfortunately, Uganda was one of those few African countries that abstained in last year’s vote despite assurances from the highest level to the contrary. Not long ago President Museveni bravely admitted in public that he was hoodwinked by Bush on Iraq and regretted the mistake in supporting the illegal occupation of the country. He needs to correct another US related diplomatic mistake by causing Uganda’s ambassador to the UN to vote in support of the UN resolution calling for an end to the blockade against Cuba.

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa

* Please send comments to

Since May 2002, PeaceWomen has been producing the 1325 PeaceWomen E-Newsletter as a means to maintain the momentum and visibility of SCR 1325, to advocate for its full and rapid implementation, and to share information with UN entities, government representatives and civil society actors about the resolution and related women, peace and security issues. Their 50th issue features:
1. In Celebration of the 50th Issue of 1325 PeaceWomen E-News: Comments from Our Readers
2. The Final Days of Women, Peace and Security Month - October 2004
3. 1325 Translation Update: Dari, Punjabi and Urdu Translations Now Available
4. Women, Peace and Security News
5. Feature Reports: “Secretary-General’s Report on women, peace and security,” “Four Years On: An Alternative Report and Progress Check on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325” (NGOWG), & Others
6. Feature Statements: Civil Society Statements to Arria Formula Meeting on Women, Peace and Security, Letter to Security Council Members on 28 October Open Debate on Women, Peace and Security (NGOWG), & Others
7. Feature Interview: Gender Issues in the UN Peacekeeping Operation in Haiti: An Interview with Nadine Puechguirbal, Senior Gender Advisor, UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
8. Feature Resources: Inventory of UN Resources on Women, Peace and Security (OSAGI) & “FACES: Women as Partners in Peace and Security” (DPI-OSAGI)
9. UNIFEM Update: Commemorating the 4th Anniversary of Resolution 1325
10. Feature Analysis: UNMIK Office of Gender Affairs Places Gender Concerns at the Top of the Peacekeeping Political Agenda in Kosovo
11. Women, Peace and Security Calendar: Recent Events in Celebration of the 4th Anniversary of SCR 1325

African women attending the 7th African Regional Meeting on the Review of the Dakar and Beijing Conferences (Beijing + 10) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 6-14 October, 2004, expressed satisfaction with the efforts of the African Union (AU) and NEPAD to ensure that all their policies, programmes and practices are inclusive and engendered. The expert group meeting, chaired by Dr. Sara Longwe of FEMNET, heard from two panelists: Madam Bineta Diop, the executive director of Femmes Africa Solidarite (FAS) and Ms Litha Musyimi-Ogana, NEPAD Gender and Civil Society advisor who presented a paper on " Gender Responsiveness of NEPAD."

"Progress For Children addresses the child survival Millennium Development Goal, graphically depicting the world's advances in the lead up to 2015. It states that despite global gains in child survival since 1990, significant discrepancies remain within and across countries and regions and 11 million children still die needlessly each year. By ensuring access to basic services and continued use of simple, cost-effective interventions, these deaths can be averted and the goal of a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality from 1990 to 2015 achieved."

Police arrested 34 supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party attending a meeting here, in what the opposition party said was yet more evidence of continued harassment of its members by state security agents. Officials of the opposition party said heavily armed police stormed a community hall in Mpopoma constituency here and force-marched the MDC members who were meeting there to West Commonage police station nearby.

Dear Editor,
The article by Riaz Tayob of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (Seatini) in South Africa is very education and informative. One wonders whether some of the African leaders spare time to read this kind of literature. It would should help them become exposed and understand on how to deal with their counterpart leaders from the North. Institutions like World Bank and IMF have literally taken over the roles and responsibilities of the states in Africa through pushing through the throat of high indebted countries in Africa with a bitter pill aimed at underdeveloping them. Like Riaz says, this is done through imposed free trade and liberation policies. Which from the countries in the North, who appear to have the control in these IFIs, did not in their time when they were developing dared not to follow. My observation is that this type of information, that Riaz is sharing, must reach out to more people in Africa. Especially the poor. The challenge remains how to do this in the context of the prevailing underdeveloped information communication systems. Even the language used, is of the oppressor, which very few urban based intellectuals can access. Who may use it for themselves and not even widely share this knowledge to empower the African populace. This is one big weakness with our 'educated' Africans. How then do you think Pambazuka could assist to popularise such information and widely communicate it to reach out to the grassroots. This I believe can be one way towards liberalisation of Africa from both social and economic bondage. If the people of Africa are empowered with information, knowledge and their anger evoked, they would control their destiny with or without the elite, whose interests appear to compromise with the oppressor as 'consultants' opportunists at the expense of the poor and Africa as a whole.

Editor's response: Like you, we think it is important that articles such as this should be widely circulated both at grassroots level as well as to parliamentarians. We would like your help in sending copies of Pambazuka News as widely as possible, and encourage everyone to write to their members of parliament with a copy of the article.